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I would not have voted for Iraq war, says Howard

MICHAEL HOWARD today raises the political stakes over Iraq by saying that he would not have backed the government in last year’s eve-of-war Commons vote had he known then that British intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s weapons was flawed.

The Tory leader’s statement comes after the report by Lord Butler of Brockwell concluded that “sporadic and patchy” evidence was passed off as “detailed, extensive and authoritative” by the prime minister to bolster the case for war to sceptical Labour MPs.

If the Tories had not voted with Labour on March 18 last year, it is almost certain that Tony Blair would have been defeated and forced to resign.

Howard, in an interview with The Sunday Times, says the crucial government motion that authorised military action should not have referred to Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles” posing “a threat to international peace and security”.